Gaming has restarted… huzzah! We decided to give the Aliens RPG a go.
So my eldest asked for it not to be too shooty, so waves of xenomorphs are a definite no, no. So after a bit of head scratching we started off On a space ship that had a ‘containment’ breach… after a bit of panicking, they managed to make it to the escape pods seconds before the ship exploded… they then hurtled towards a water planet, the retro rockets and parachutes failed to deploy so they came down hard, cracking a few seals… with the water flooding in they fought to open the door before they sank. Luckily with a bit of hurried searching they got some survival equipment and managed to deploy the life raft before the pod sank. I couldn’t think where I got the idea from and then it struck me….
Well I think these are just about done apart from the basing (and all of the bits I missed).
I still think I need to do something with the shields… I might mask off the miniature and spray the thing again. That way I will get a flat finish…. but here they are waiting to be based…
Tonight I managed to get some more done on the Arbites, it was another late night getting in, but I did a bit and got them closer to being finished. All white has now hopefully disappeared!
The yellow on the shields still needs some work. I decided on a colour change so used brush on white paint… not the best look. I will add a glaze and see if that helps. I am considering black and yellow stripes on them, but I am still at the ‘hmmmm’ stage about it. It would be striking, but also a total pain in the backside to get right.
Metallic still to go, but definitely looking better now.
Tonight I headed off to visit my mate and we got to drink tea and discuss our upcoming games, both my Alien RPG and the new one I have bought for my eldest…New RPG
I got back quite late but managed to slap a bit of paint about…
Slowly moving towards a finish line. To be honest I decided to just paint the grenades black, with the idea to repaint them white later to allow some red to be added. Really just the hands and weapons to do with the Contrast paint and then onto the metallics.
Hopefully I will get some more done on these tomorrow. I am deliberately leaving the printers switched off as it is getting a bit stressful constantly adding to the painting pile… my plan is finish the Arbites, Flintloque and the undercoated 6mm Samurai (oh and get some basing material onto the 15mm Samurai) then take stock of where I am.
Sadly the undercoated samurai are about a third (maybe a half) of the whole army. I am honestly not sure whether to just get them all done in one go or not…it might be a bit soul destroying, which is why I am dithering.
I have decided to start offloading stuff I am never going to get finished, or in some cases, started! Number one of these are the 15mm Black Hat Aztecs. I got a whole armies worth and decided on the Tin soldier ones instead. I really just couldn’t be hassled with separate shields and hands on something in 15mm, plus everyone had a similar shield, even troops that wouldn’t use that kind. I know that I will never, ever get them done so I might as well get them on Ebay or similar and get a bit of cash to spend on new paint or brushes.
What I am trying to say is my pile of shame is a bit on the large side and needs reducing by at least half, I mean I am sitting on GW blister packs from the 90’s… They are so old that the plastic is actually falling to bits. I will never get round to painting them… I suppose the bottom line is that I need the space, my 6×8 shed is packed, my cupboard in the big shed is packed, the bit in the passage above me books (which are packed in) is stuffed full. It’s a pity I don’t have a van and an easy way to get to some Wargames conventions as I reckon it would be quite cathartic .
Right I am going to stop rambling now and go to bed… I will catch you all tomorrow.
This evening was, in the words of the Rolling Stones, a definite case of paint it black…
I made a start on the boots and upper torso armour, once this is dry I will move onto the arms and belts. I also repainted the white on the Sister Superior. This will end up red for the robes and will remain white for her wimple (or whatever it is called).
I managed to get paint on various things, including some Flintloque miniatures too. I re levelled the printer again, this time I made sure I pressed on the build plate as I screwed the bolts in, this was to make sure it was level across the whole thing. I had printed the bust and stand at the same time, but only the bust printed, now it might have been poor support placement. So after re levelling the build plate, I gave this lot a go…
They pretty much all came out fine apart from the beggar’s right foot which hadn’t really printed properly (well I don’t think it had) … so I helped out by snipping it off… oh by the way the dog does have a head, it is behind the milk maid. These are the villagers from the Frost Kickstarter.
Still feeling ropey so taken some Samurai Wargames Rules and some Bombay Mix to bed.
The Barbecue went well this evening… but I started feeling a bit rough again once my friends went… so early night it is and we will see what tomorrow brings.
Well this is me on the second day after my jab and although I don’t feel crap, I don’t feel 100% either. Because of this I cancelled my game tonight and redid my horses from yesterday…
I had to redo them as a couple had totally gone weird, it probably got too cold and the resin thickened a bit causing problems. Luckily today was red hot…okay it was warm, so as I had got home early due to the head then I set the printer away with nice warm, runny resin. They worked a treat. One advantage of having extra horses is that I can now have a pair for my Brougham…
I will try and get myself on with some painting tomorrow. I have so much to catch up on now, the Arbites being a case in point. I doubt I will get much done tomorrow evening as my mate is coming over for another barbecue and to work on the characters for the Aliens game.
Nope we are not talking golf here, there is in fact a small hole in me, I got my second Covid jab today and as such am a bit headachey, but otherwise I seem fine. I stood next to the freezer and you will be pleased (but probably not surprised) to hear that I had not become magnetic. Yeah there are people out there who for some reason think it will make them.
Anyway I checked the horses from yesterday and sadly one didn’t print, one had half a leg missing, one had a separate leg part and the third was missing the end of the traces. I don’t have a team, but I can probably rustle up a pair.
I reckon the failures on the prints is down to poor support placement, I am not sure why one of them failed totally though!
I am giving them another go in a different orientation to see if that will help, fingers crossed 🤞.
They should be done in about an hour and a half..but I am having an early night so I might find out tomorrow morning if they are done properly… I just had a peep and there seemed to be four things printing.
One thing that is a bit annoying is that I want these miniatures a certain size and am dropping it to 85%. This means that the presupported miniatures are no good for me as the minute you change scale then the easier it is for the supports to fail. I am therefore having to learn support placement as I go along!
My lord if the rings or my caveman miniatures are the ‘correct’ size for me. This means the supports work all the time.
I deliberately had a night off tonight, I am tired and thought sod it, I will start downloading all the things I have got on Patreon and Kickstarter…errrr there is rather a lot… things would have gone quicker if I hadn’t downloaded 4 GB of things I had already downloaded.
I managed to get the bits of the coach put together….
I remembered to put the driver on it this time 😉
I am busy printing the horses now… as things seem to be working I am doing all four at once… wish my luck. The temperature is dropping so hopefully it won’t affect things too much. These are the longest print I will be doing so far..over six hours due to the fact that they are basically stood on their tails, raising their height, and in doing so the print time… I also slowed down the lift speed and made it higher, supposedly it helps.
I also had a mooch at the Aliens RPG… I thought I should as I am running a game on Friday, it will mostly be character creation, but some sort of game introductory session will be required 😉.
